CURRENT NOTES. 241 



Ova of lepidoptera. — Acidalia decorata. — Pale green in colour, 

 tall, conical, tapering slightly to the rounded top; length 5 : 8 (widest 

 end = ? base). Surface shiny, a number of well-developed longitudinal 

 ribs, about nine visible on one side. Apparently a large number of 

 faint transverse striations cross the longitudinal ribs at right angles. 

 The ribs go over the two ends, suggesting that the eggs are not 

 attached by the base, otherwise they have all the appearance of being 

 upright eggs. The rive eggs examined are laid in a little heap end to 

 end, the narrower end against the broader end of the egg in front of it. 

 [Egg described under a hand lens, August 1st, 1906, laid by a female 

 taken the previous day at Clelles.] 



Acidalia rubricata. — A long, slender, somewhat conical, egg when laid 

 loosely, one end only slightly less in diameter than the other, '? micropylar. 

 Of a delicate yellow-green tint, with a number of slender longitudinal 

 ribs, seven apparently on one face, crossed with a number of delicate 

 transverse striations. The eggs are laid in three little heaps of 3, 3, and 

 6, but one left in the box is laid as a flat egg, its long axis horizontal. 

 Compared with the egg of A. decorata (supra), that of A. rubricata is more 

 slender, that is, less wide compared with length, much less shiny in tint, 

 the longitudinal ribs rather better marked, the transverse striations 

 less so. It is duller in colour, much less pearly in appearance, and 

 less green and more yellow in tint. It tapers more distinctly at the 

 narrow pole, and is less wide at the opposite one. [Egg described 

 under a hand lens August 1st, 1906. Female taken previous day at 

 Clelles.]— J. W. Tutt. 



CURRENT NOTES. 



We Britishers go to Switzerland for our holidays in order to leave 

 the bustle of life behind, and one who lives rather among the people 

 than in the hotels feels somehow that, even in the towns, things are 

 moving Blower there. This was borne particularly on our notice 

 to-day as we sorted out a great pile of magazines, etc., for the binder. 

 In February, 1862, was published the first number of the first volume 

 of the Mittheilungen der Schweiz. Entom. Gesellschaft. This volume 

 of 352 pages (about the size of an annual volume of the Ent. Record) 

 was completed in May, 1865. Since its start ten volumes have been 

 completed, and the 11th has been commenced, i.e., an average of 

 something like four years per volume. But our word just now 

 concerns vol. x. When this was commenced in 1897 it was intended 

 to index the back volumes and publish the index at the end of the 

 volume. When it was completed in February, 1903, therefore, the 

 title-page was held back for the index. We have now patiently 

 waited l.V years, and neither title-page nor index has yet arrived. It 

 becomes imperative to get volumes bound, or parts get lost, and so, 

 after trying to slowdown to the Swiss standard, we are obliged to 

 bind without title-page or index. Cannot our editor give us a title- 

 page at once for vol. x, and let the index come with vol. xi, when 

 the latter is completed? After all, " work wins," and index-making 

 is only a bit of automatic grind at which many of us have had a turn. 



This brings us to another matter, viz., the utter uselessness of much 

 of the material buried in many of the Bulletins, Annals, and Trans- 

 actions of the foreign societies. After all, the material published by 



